cleaner, healthier lives. that's what earns her a spot on "the next list." more more on this episode and other agents of change, please go to cnn.com/thenextlist. >> thanks so much for joining us. i'm dr. sanjay gupta. we'll see you back here next sunday. you're in the cnn newsroom. i'm fredricka whitfield. it could be a critical point in the presidential race. the first big showdown just three days away and both president obama and mitt romney are busy preparing. cnn takes a look at what's at stake. >> reporter: both obama and romney are looking to lower the stakes at this week's debate.

>> mitt romney has prepared more than any other candidate in history. >> president obama is a very gifted speaker. the man has been on the national stage for many years. he's an experienced debater. he's done these kinds of debates before. this is mitt's first time on this kind of stage. >> beth myers said president obama is widely regarded as one of the most talented political communicators in modern history. the obama camp likes to remind voters that the president hasn't had as much time to prepare for the debates because he's busy being commander in chief. when it comes to just how much debates matter, it depends. >> most often debates don't make that big a difference. very few candidates ever win an election with a debate, but quite a few have lost an election with a debate. so it can matter. >> these match-ups can produce some memorable lines.

like in 1980 between then-governor ronald reagan and president jimmy carter. >> there you go again. >> and lord benson's candidate in 1908. >> i knew jack kennedy. jack kennedy was a friend of mine. senator, you're no jack kennedy. >> then there were moments to seemed to say more, like president h.w. bush looking at his watch when making his remarks. and obama's comment to then rival hillary clinton in 2008. >> you're likeable enough, hillary. >> one thing analysts agree on, the debates may be romney's big chance. >> he's got two very tough competing goals, to be likeable and laying out the attacks. it's hard to go likeable when you're the attack dog. >> we've seen obama as a

president for four years. there's not much room on his canvas to paint. mitt romney? he's still got a little space left on his canvas. he can show us where he would lead us. >> just how much debate prep will president obama and romney do over the next few days? >> this is really crunch time, right? the president is already headed to las vegas. he has a rally there tonight and will spend the next several days doing debate prep out there in nevada which is, of course, a key battleground state. he'll be with john kerry who is representing romney in his sessions. we're told romney heads out to colorado tomorrow. he'll be practicing with ohio senator rob portman. portman is playing president obama in these debates and it's all leading up to wednesday's big night.

fred? >> thanks very much in washington. don't miss the big debate. you can watch it here live on cnn, 7:00 p.m. eastern time. the chief justices will formally kick off a new term on the agenda, some of the most complicated issues of our day. here now is joe johns. >> reporter: right after the supreme court's health care decision in june, chief justice john roberts joked to colleagues that he would find an island for tr fortress to escape the political heat. here's how ruth bader ginsburg described the scene. >> some people call it will a quarter of a century. >> reporter: there are no signs of it cooling down. >> the justices are moving from the frying pan right into the fire. they are tackling some of the most difficult legal questions of the day. across the board, probably the biggest term in at least a

decade. >> reporter: tackling things like affirmative action, same-sex marriage, abortion are likely to come up this monday. >> there are a lot more in the docket and a lot more in the pipeline that they'll be making a decision on soon. >> reporter: another big set of decisions will bring even more scrutiny on the chief justice. rumors swirled that the health care he authored caused a considerable rift against s scalia. something he denies. >> no, i haven't had a falling out with the chief justice. nothing like that. >> reporter: another big question, will the chief justice take the court in another legal direction. a dramatic shift to the right. >> a lot of progressives are concerned that this might mean that the chief justice has

delivered some kapt althoucapit good will. >> some think he'll try to do it gradually. >> i think justice scalia and justice thomas really want to get to the end answer as quickly as possible and make the law conform to what they really understand, whereas the chief justice is more incrementalist. >> kerry sarino doesn't believe anything will change any time soon. >> this isn't a conservative court until we have a shift in members of the court. it's impossible to call it a court that lieeans more to the left or to the right. >> attention will also be paid to judge anthony kenny, who is on the swing vote in many cases. two americans, one soldier and a civilian, are dead after a fire broke out in afghanistan.

it happened at a temporary checkpoint being monitored in western kabul. three afghanistan soldiers also died in the crash that might have been promoted by insurgent fire. militants wearing uniforms, deaths have been on the rise now. u.s. commander in afghanistan, general john allen says these killings are tragic. >> you're in a tough spot right now. can you explain why the sudden increase in these attacks. >> i'm mad as hell at them, to be honest with you. we're going to get after this. it reverberates everywhere, across the united states. we're willing to sacrifice a lot for this campaign, but we're not willing to be murdered for it. >> if these attacks continue, the american people are going to say we've had enough.

why are we training these people if they're murdering us? >> it may be, in fact. it may be the voice right now we hear. the key point is for us to understand that the vast majority of the afghans, and you've lived with them, you understand these people, they're with us in this. >> earlier this month, u.s. troops were ordered to halt joint operations with local security forces in some areas because of these attacks. a major earthquake rocked southwest columbia today. it had a magnitude of 7.3 and hit about six miles from the city of isnos. officials say it was an extremely deep quake, originating nearly 100 miles beneath the earth. a mystery in tennessee. what happened to these children before a fire destroyed their house? remember when you said men are superior drivers?

yeah. yeah. then how'd i get this... [ voice of dennis ] ...allstate safe driving bonus check? what is that? so weird, right? my agent, tom, said... [ voice of dennis ] ...only allstate sends you a bonus check for every six months you're accident-free... ...but i'm a woman. maybe it's a misprint. does it look like a misprint? ok. what i was trying... [ voice of dennis ] silence. ♪ ask an allstate agent about the safe driving bonus check. are you in good hands?

a desperate search for two tennessee children today. their home burned down a week ago, but police say still no trace of 7-year-old gage daniel and 9-year-old chloe. susan? >> reporter: hi, fred. it's so mysterious and so confusing. at this hour, state investigators are launching teams of people using dogs to search a bigger area of the woods and both sides of the road around the house that was incinerat

incinerated. with absolutely no physical evidence that the children were home during that children that killed their grandparents last sunday, authorities are doing all they can to find the 7-year-old and 9-year-old. after nearly a week of sifting through ashes and debris, investigators have found in sign of 9-year-old chloe and 7-year-old gage. no signs they were there and no signs they weren't when an inferno swept through their home that they lived in with their grandparents. friends and family don't understand, and neither does anyone else. >> i think something is very fishy. >> the more you find out, the more questions you have. >> reporter: helicopters have found nothing, either. did someone take them? the tennessee bureau of investigation issued an amber alert friday night, calling the missing children endangered. authorities don't know what caused the fire, adding to the

mystery. >> they said that it was not an intentional fire, but obviously there's more to it than that. >> chloe's parents are not considered suspects, according to police. >> we are tired, but we want this to be -- to continue on until we find out what's really happened to these children. >> it's what everyone wants to know, fred. what happened to those children? >> so what was the relationship between the parents, the grandparents. were the children actually living at that house? >> they were. and fred, we don't know all of the circumstances, but authorities say it appears to have been an agreed-upon arrangement and the children have been living with their grandparents for years. now, investigators say chloe and gage's parents do not live together and have had some legal troubles years ago, but again, they are not considered suspects and the family is cooperating according to police. >> and what other steps are investigators taking to find these kids? >> well, they tell me they're talking with people at the

children's school, friends, neighbors, and of course the parents. but as time goes on, authorities are getting more and more worried about what happened to these two beautiful children. >> all right. susan candiotti, thanks for keeping us posted. next, a discussion about america's state of political discord profiled in a new documentary. >> you do or don't like it? the writer's desktop and the coordinator's phone are working on a joke with local color. the secure cloud just received a revised intro from the strategist's tablet. and while i make my way into the venue, the candidate will be rehearsing off of his phone. [ candidate ] and thanks to every young face i see out there. [ woman ] his phone is one of his biggest supporters. [ female announcer ] with cisco at the center... working together has never worked so well. ♪ [ male announcer ] how do you engineer a true automotive breakthrough?

♪ you give it bold new styling, unsurpassed luxury and nearly 1,000 improvements. introducing the redesigned 2013 glk. see your authorized mercedes-benz dealer for exceptional offers through mercedes-benz financial services.

does it seem like america's political system consists of a lot of shouting leading to few results? that's at the core of a new documentary called "patroicracy." people will be able to see it and discuss it wednesday night at university of diof denver. that's where the first presidential debate takes place, and this is a little bit of what they'll be seeing. >> not a single member was ready on one side to sit and talk with the other side. >> why don't you try working with democrats? the american people want us to meet in the middle. they don't want this nonsense. >> brian malone is the person who produced and directed "patr

rirks "patriocracy." thanks for joining me. >> thanks for having me. >> should viewers, when they watch this, feel hopeful at the end of this rather -- it is kind of depressing and an angry view of america. or is this most ail rely a realn the mirror? >> i think you hit it on the head there. it is a real look in the mirror. to tell you the truth, it's all of those things. i'd like to think it's all of those things. it's kind of a reality check to really have us as americans really look at our responsibility as citizens. >> did you feel like a lot of people you spoke with were hopeful? you showcase a lot of political hopefuls, alan simpson, eleanor cliff. did they feel hopeful about this? >> hopeful, that's kind of a stretch, but i do think it's more of a reality check that things can get better. there's also this notion that things kind of go in cycles. right now we might be in a down cycle.

>> what is that thing or moment that provoked you to say, you know what? i'm going to do a documentary. i'm going to compile these thoughts, grab a collection of sound bites that have been on any number of networks and put it all together. >> it came from backyard barbecue discussions, honestly, to tell you the truth, where the conversations changed from what your kids are doing in school and that kind of thing to, oh, that obama, he's a socialist, or that bush, he's just evil, you know what i mean? and the conversations at social events started spiraling downward, and i felt like that type of conversation is not what i really signed up for. so we set out to explore, what are the reasons on a very base level that if it's reached down to our very basic level of our human-to-human discussion, person-to-person discussion on a human level, how did it get this

bad where it's gotten this deep, it's this saturated in our american culture? >> among those congressional leaders you spoke with, representative jim cooper who, in his own words, thipnks the system is broken. here's what he had to say in your doc. >> congress is not even being at all positive. >> we have our reaction almost at a screeching halt. >> if there's no bad policy, there is no compromise. >> we're listening to some of the worst influences. >> you heard a collection of voices. almost everyone agrees something not going right, but the only way to kind of right those wrongs is if people are willing to participate. did you get that out of these lawmakers who acknowledge their system might be broken but is there a commitment that they're willing to adhere to to fix it? >> well, i guess what i would say to that is members of congress respond to the people

that they hear from, and if they're only hearing from the loudest, most extreme voices, then that's who they're really going to respond to, honestly. if more rational, more thoughtful conversation entered into the interaction with their constituents, i would bet that you would see a change not only in the behavior of members of congress, but you might also see a change in some of the faces in the members of congress. >> that's brian malone, producer and director of the documentary "patriocracy." if you want information on where the movie is being screened, go to facebook and search patriocracy, or you can go to the documentary's website, patriocracymovie.com. there's the bonnie and clyde guns. i'll tell you what they're going

for. [ male announcer ] eligible for medicare? that's a good thing, but it doesn't cover everything. only about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. so consider an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like all standardized medicare supplement plans, they help save you up to thousands in out-of-pocket costs. call today to request a free decision guide. with these types of plans, you'll be able to visit any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients... plus, there are no networks, and you'll never need a referral to see a specialist. join the millions who have already enrolled in the only medicare supplement insurance plans endorsed by aarp... and provided by unitedhealthcare insurance company, which has over 30 years of experience behind it. with all the good years ahead, look for the experience and commitment

to go the distance with you. call now to request your free decision guide.

the u.s. supreme court heads back to work tomorrow morning. one of the first big issues it could tackle is voter id laws ahead of the november election. we could also see rulings on gay marriage and an affirmative action case involving the university of texas. the justices took some time this morning to attend red mass at st. matthew's cathedral this morning. it is the mass that is at the beginning of a new session since

1953. bonnie and clyde's guns are on the auction block today in mammogr new hampshire. these are the ones the notorious bank robbers actually had on them when authorities shot and killed the couple back in 1934. whoever buys the gun will also get an extra clip for bullets and a letter from the son of one of the texas rangers who killed the couple. when most of us travel, we take a train, plane or automobile. why don't we try hopping on a horse to get around? we get on the saddle in london's hyde park. >> reporter: i'm going to take you to one of london's biggest tourist spots, but i'm not going to take you there by boat or by buggy or by bus or by bike, i'm going to take you by ben.

now, this is not big ben, just ben, and ben is going to take us for a little stroll around town. come on. >> i love this because this doesn't feel like work at all. >> reporter: this is the beautiful serpentine in hyde park. it was created 300-some years ago. it's actually fake, so ben and this horse won't want to actually drink from this water, but the tourists are having a good time. hyde park is 350 acres. we're actually on a bit called rotten road. now, this used to be a very fashionable place where society would come to see and be seen.

no, it's not time to eat! if ever you're in london, come check it out. come for a ride in hyde park stables. zain virgee and ben, cnn. >> cheerio, zain. i'll be back in one hour and i'll talk to the phoenix mayor who spent one week on food stamps and how the experience changed him. i'm fredricka whitfield. "your money" starts after this.

hey america, even though slisa rinna is wearing the new depend silhouette briefs for charity to prove how great the fit is even under a fantastic dress. the best protection now looks, fits and feels just like underwear. we invite you to get a free sample and try one on too. is the only yogurt brand endorsed by weight watchers and your taste buds have always endorsed us. so, you know what this means... this is a real win win! yoplait, it is so good.